Page 578 - moby-dick

home of the fire worshippers. As Ptolemy Philopater testi-
fied of the African elephant, I then testified of the whale,
pronouncing him the most devout of all beings. For accord-
ing to King Juba, the military elephants of antiquity often
hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in the pro-
foundest silence.
The chance comparison in this chapter, between the
whale and the elephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of
the one and the trunk of the other are concerned, should
not tend to place those two opposite organs on an equality,
much less the creatures to which they respectively belong.
For as the mightiest elephant is but a terrier to Leviathan,
so, compared with Leviathan’s tail, his trunk is but the stalk
of a lily. The most direful blow from the elephant’s trunk
were as the playful tap of a fan, compared with the measure-
less crush and crash of the sperm whale’s ponderous flukes,
which in repeated instances have one after the other hurled
entire boats with all their oars and crews into the air, very
much as an Indian juggler tosses his balls.*
*Though all comparison in the way of general bulk
between the whale and the elephant is preposterous, inas-
much as in that particular the elephant stands in much the
same respect to the whale that a dog does to the elephant;
nevertheless, there are not wanting some points of curious
similitude; among these is the spout. It is well known that
the elephant will often draw up water or dust in his trunk,
and then elevating it, jet it forth in a stream.
The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I de-
plore my inability to express it. At times there are gestures